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Kimny, as I've seen your join date is quite recent, I think it's safe for me to assume that you're not fully aware of what went into behind the words of those statements. Please don't mistake my bluntness for being rude or crass--I'm just really poor at getting thoughts across simply when I don't.

This is not a public forum. While it is in the sense that anyone can sign up, we don't say that this is public in the sense that anyone can come on here and voice anything and everything they want. You don't go to a party and complain to all the party-goers how bad the party is and expect to be able to stay. For lack of better terms, you don't go to someone's house and crap on the carpet and expect not to be ushered out or at least reprimanded.

Next, despite what you may think of the rules, those rules are still the rules here and are the ones that people are asked to abide by. If you don't care for the rules, that doesn't give you an excuse to break them. They are still the rules.

Kimny wrote:That said, a forum of a late game establishes that in its forums the very lateness or development style can't be discussed? This is the first time in my life I see a late game trying to forbid people from discussing the lateness of the game or its date release. Or demands "keeping the arguments about lateness to a minimum".

...

But if that would to become the official position, then just let's all be clear: when someone comes here saying the forum is not too much welcoming to critiques (or is to some only), just let's not complain or deny anymore.

You hit the nail on the head. Yes, it is to silence heavy-handed criticism. No, the forum is not meant to be a welcoming or gathering place for those who want to just voice their disapproval, bemoan any problems they have with the development of the game, or to just outright rant. There is Kickstarter for that -- an unmoderated stream of whatever people want to put there. This forum is not like youtube comments where anyone and everyone can say their piece of mind.

However, despite that, I posted it mostly as a friendly reminder to prevent things from going far off track. We don't just ban people outright for either brushing against or breaking the rules. We'd take it to PM first, we'd issue warnings, we'd lock topics, and so forth. So you are right that this thread has definitely been very civil compared to some of the problems we dealt with in the past, we also don't want to beat a dead horse. The posting of that specific part of the FAQ isn't just for those who are new to forums, but also for veteran members as well.

I apologize if you feel offended over this. I know you never complained about the lateness of the game. If you'd like a bit more in-depth explanation or information, feel free to hit me up over PM. I don't mind going over more or try some other reasoning if you'd like.

Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.

DWMagus, thanks for the detailed reply. First let me tell once more that I read the forums since 2013. I just registered recently. Second, to avoid continuing this infinitely, I will just say the following. Of course heavy criticism, in terms of not civil ones, should be forbidden in any forum of any game. Now, you said heavy criticism. I understand your point, but I will just ask you to take care because these are not the same thing. I mean, providing that the forum does not discourage hard criticism, I am all in with being vigilant against harsh criticism (just to use different words)

Now, if you or the community or Josh think that classifying mere complains or event debates (!) about the lateness of a late game as being heavy criticism is reasonable... Or can fit into the "crapping on the carpet and expecting not to be ushered"... well, I am/will be sad to read that. And it's good that we now have that explanation in public for each one to make his/hers own conclusion. Sure, this forum is private. At least every adult here knows that. Sure, it gives the power to set whatever rules whoever entitled to wants. And sure the guests to the party have to abide to the rules just as I have been doing. But it does not prevent any rules decided to be, let's say, of bad conception and reputation. I never saw a game with a given problem forbidding the debate in its forums about that very given problem.

Being blunt too, I totally understand trying to prevent mere exclamation-posts like "this game is damn late!". But again, be careful: generically forbidding debates about causes and specially consequences of the lateness will be simply unprofessional. Sure, I won't complain about this anymore because I don't like the risk of crapping in carpets. But after seeing all that for the first time, in another scale I am now looking forward to the day EA will forbid users in their forums to discuss about the buggy nature of their games

In my opinion, the moderators here have been (rightly) very lenient with enforcement of this rule. We are here at Josh's pleasure, and if we do not abide by rules then we are certainly not welcome. There's nothing draconian about it.

But the rules so far don't stifle criticism (and if they did there'd be nothing wrong with it). A lot of attitude in the forum kinda does? But we've been over this.

We're lenient because, while I don't think we've discussed it directly, we're more interested in enforcing the spirit of the law than the letter. It'd be all too easy to go nuking posts and issuing bans for every broken rule or crossed line, but while not everyone would be coerced away from the forums in that case, everyone who dodged punishment would be leaving anyway.

A lot of forum disharmony is something we just let play out for a little bit, to see if it resolves itself. Sometimes we'll make a mods-only thread to discuss an appropriate action for a well-behaved member on a sour streak or when there is a potentially detrimental situation that isn't fully covered by the rules. This business of game lateness and criticism thereof is an important discussion, and we do our best to handle it as transparently as possible (i.e. most of the conversation we've had about it has been here in the public side of the forums in threads like this). It's a topic that requires a certain amount of curbing, but we don't want to slip into outright Big Brother lock-away-the-dissenters-and-torture-them censorship territory.

We hadn't anticipated making rules for this sort of thing in the long run, perhaps out of confidence in Josh or a subconscious display of faith in the project, so everything you've seen with regard to Limit Theory's release and beta is an effort made as a response to the state of the forums. While DWMagus is right in that we're trying to cultivate an overall positive realm for LT, and that does involve suppressing certain criticisms, I would invite you to shoot one of us a PM and a paragraph or so if you think one of our actions was a locking or deleting too far.

But as with any critique, administrative criticisms and comments are best worded constructively.

I dunno for what i see it seems Josh just tried to eat the elephant in one sitting. The task seems too large for one man in the time period he set. That much is obvious.

I keep seeing this, and keep thinking back on some of the decisions that I've made in doing some of my projects. They were my babies! No one else had could understand and help me with them, they were my vision, "i've brought them this far, now I'm so close to finish it, bringing people to help they would just get in my way". But now, looking back, I see that other people could indeed have helped. That letting go control of some parts, and getting help with the stuff i was struggling, was what would have made the road so much easier.

But I was stubborn and paid the price for it.

Dunno if this is what is happening here but I can see the similarities: the depression, the pressure, the anxiety, getting stuck on one way of solving problems. I'm saying these things cause no one told them to me and i wish someone had. In the end my man is your decision, just know you don't HAVE to do it all alone.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

I'm curious Kimny. You say you have been reading the forum since 2013, ok. So what prompted you to finally make a post roughly 2 years later? What was your motivation? I don't really need an essay or a debate, just a simple answer.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

(Just as an aside, Poet, I lurked on the forum for roughly two years before I started posting in any meaningful manner. I started because I thought I could contribute. There doesn't have to be malice behind Kimny's motivation.)

Scytale wrote:(Just as an aside, Poet, I lurked on the forum for roughly two years before I started posting in any meaningful manner. I started because I thought I could contribute. There doesn't have to be malice behind Kimny's motivation.)

I only lurked for about one year, but I still lurked a long time before I posted. The thing that finally drew me out was the Dwarf Fortress thread.

We're lenient because, while I don't think we've discussed it directly, we're more interested in enforcing the spirit of the law than the letter

That's a pretty damn good answer and frankly if that position is maintained, that's certainly more than sufficient for a balanced solution between not letting harsh debates dominate but also not really forbidding people from debating the lateness of a late game.

I'm curious Kimny. You say you have been reading the forum since 2013, ok. So what prompted you to finally make a post roughly 2 years later? What was your motivation? I don't really need an essay or a debate, just a simple answer.

I don't know if it is because of your past replies to me, but I can't help but feel every sentence there to be a bit caustic. If that is the case, I would kindly ask you just to stop. Otherwise, it's a good question. But I'm not 100% sure. And you won't like my guess. I think it had been pissing me off for a while how the rare critiques posted in the forums were made like people had to apologize for them in advance and praise Josh's numerous (real) qualities first. I mean, people were like making two paragraphs of compliments and excuses just before asking "is there a release date?" or "are there any real news about the game?", as if it were a sin to ask that. If I remember correctly my very first post was when one guy was like that and other two mentioning critiques not being much welcome or alike (and that's something that I've been a bit afraid regarding the forums as well). Then I jumped in trying to bring disagreements I had but in a constructive manner. Now, I don't know why I decided to jump in precisely at that very day. That's it, no malice. And I will be happy to give you any further details if you want, but then I think private messages would fit better, considering the subject of this thread.

(Just as an aside, Poet, I lurked on the forum for roughly two years before I started posting in any meaningful manner. I started because I thought I could contribute. There doesn't have to be malice behind Kimny's motivation.)

Exactly. Thinking about it, actually I have the habit of following game discussions and/or game forums without necessarily taking part in them. Of course I have done that before, but I am far more present as reader than as contributor usually.

Josh has told us what stage Limit Theory is currently at in his reply to one of Kimny's posts found here. This was written by Josh on November 16, 2015.

And by the way, my first post is in that link too, from November 14th I think. I didn't remember, but while it's a big post indeed, it start precisely with my motivation to register Thanks BFett for bringing that back. If I had recalled I wrote that paragraph, I would just have linked to it!

Kimny wrote: I think it had been pissing me off for a while how the rare critiques posted in the forums were made like people had to apologize for them in advance and praise Josh's numerous (real) qualities first. I mean, people were like making two paragraphs of compliments and excuses just before asking "is there a release date?" or "are there any real news about the game?", as if it were a sin to ask that.

I have taken a couple "breaks" from here due to this very reason. (plus, to be honest, there is not much to talk about) Once Josh came back it became a cardinal sin to question anything at all, because Josh was/is going through some tuff times and we all had to cut him some slack. I agreed with it to a certain extent, but it got to the point I knew I was going to get myself into "trouble" and avoided coming here.

It seems enough people are past this now, and it seems Josh himself has given the green light to criticism...

JoshParnell wrote:Also, one more point, is that I have no problem with you guys voicing concerns about my approach. It used to cause me great angst pre-dark-days. At this point, I'm mentally secure enough to understand the legitimacy of the concerns from the outside without questioning the validity of what I'm doing inside

As much as I've been one of the advocates against leaving the poor battered horse alone. As time goes on more and more I'm starting to see the repetition in patterns that are creating the perceived need of more horse beating. Ironically this repetition is actually as a result OF more repetition. Which is to say that most of us I think it is fair to say are more concerned with the possibility that Josh is potentially falling back into the rabbit hole so to speak. Not in terms of the "dark days" rabbit hole. But the rabbit hole of repetition and basically reiterating on an already iterated process. To put it another way. If you considered "LT" the horse. Josh has been beating on it this whole time. He changes angles here and there but it's still the same "horse". He's rebuilt it, beat it into submission some more. Then rebuilt it again, more beating. Thus the issue I see is that we have a pattern... a cycle with Josh as well as the community. There seems to be a meta-issue going on with regards to the issue about the issue. We all have an issue with the fact that there is an issue but we all seem to be reiterating on much the same points of said issue.

Now this is where I am personally getting frustrated. Josh found himself making mistakes where he found himself in those repetitive constant reiterating phases where nothing is ever good enough and he's just tweaking it ad infinitum. I kind of had a bit of an outburst on IRC tonight as I re-read over Josh's post where he talks about separating the components of the engine so that he doesn't end up with cascading bugs and I find myself sitting here thinking... "Okay... so he's doing more engine work to make his process more efficient and less prone to errors. Wasn't that what nearly half a year of work was meant to do with LTSL?" Now this is where it gets complicated because there are a few horses. All of them being dead and in various degrees of beating. This happens to be one that I feel needs to be brought up as many times as necessary because it is a dangerous path when someone anyone (in this case Josh) finds themselves in repetitive cycles of endless progress. Which is the act of trying to squeeze infinite efficiency or make things infinitely easier or faster or whatever "better" adjective you wish to use. This can be perceived as a byproduct of perfectionism or just a personality flaw I personally don't care. I find people here seem to be pushing on the wrong issues in my opinion. The game is late... who cares? It doesn't matter that it is late or how late it is. What matters is that the current process and future processes are all productively leading to the end goal and as Josh has delved inward once again but this time deciding to keep all of us in the dark I can't help but feel like if Josh is falling back into those habits we won't know therefore cannot try to mitigate the issue.

I know there are a lot of people here that say "Josh is a big boy he can handle himself" and I agree. However this is not a hobby project anymore. If we're going to pull the "Josh is a big boy" card then by extension we also have to treat him as an adult and part of that is having the guts to pull him up and say "Mate, look... it's great that you're trying to make the process easier for yourself and less prone to bugs. But perhaps that isn't the best way to go about it.". Now I am not a programmer. My knowledge of programming extends to mere dabbling. I am not involved in LT so I don't know what it entails. But barring some context that has yet to be revealed we're now facing the barrel of yet another repetitive cycle of "engine" improvement that at this point we as the end consumers of LT will never have seen.

I think at this point I'm going to just call it as I see it. Take this as you all like. Flame me. Ban me I don't care. Josh does not know what he's doing. I don't mean he doesn't have the skills or the capacity. I mean he just simply doesn't know what he's doing. I mean this in the big picture sense. I don't want to be mean to the guy or anything but to me he needs help. Pure and simple. Yeah maybe he'll release LT one day but I'm not going to count on it happening anytime soon unless he gets help. This is why I think the constant bashing of the "lateness" or "release date" is somewhat inconsequential. There is a bigger issue here. I hope that once he's broken LT into as many pieces as he possibly can... he reaches a point at which he cannot reiterate any further and actually HAS to start making some headway because as it seems to me he's not making any. He seems to be taking 2 steps forward while taking 3 steps backward. It doesn't bode well when someone has turned their "game" into nothing more than a text based simulation for the sake of ease. If the entire game is nothing more than an "engine overlay" to which he hasn't even begun working on yet... well I don't really have anything to say to that. I don't know that there is anything you can say to that.

Edit: P.S. This is all my opinion and not intended to start any fires. Quite the opposite in fact. If any fire needs to be had it should be directed towards the issue that matters and "when" just doesn't strike me as an issue that matters. Nor does the past, save for the desire to not make the same past mistakes over and over. Also I'm joking about the fire. Fire (flaming) is bad mkay?